Case Study

Since their introduction in the 1970s, Asian Carp have reshaped the ecology of the Mississippi River, taking advantage of how humans attempt to manage the river’s untameable flows with levees, dams, and canals. The carp are controlled through fencing, poisoning, wastage, and exportation. Treated as despised immigrants, we observe how languages of exclusion cut across species, entangling us. We also find those who catch and enjoy the carp, who recognize that accepting their naturalization in the river might reshape the sustainability of food practices along the Mississippi and its vast watershed. In an eco-logic of mutualism and care, to eat the river is to heal it.

–Sarah Lewison, Andrew S. Yang

All Species Parade (Carbondale)

Asian Carp Tacos for Hundreds

Poster of European and Asian Carp

Fisherfolk on the Illinois River hauling their catch of carp

Process

After reading through the case study we’ve individually started to work on our first relational maps to understand the connections of the different aspects described in the case study.

First relational map

We’ve then merged our maps into one where we’ve combined different approaches.

There were three attributes we wanted to highlight in our relational map, which are: Tolerance, Ecological Imbalance and Language of Exclusion.

We found those to be especially important in our further work.

As part of the course we’ve also held presentations about different styles of mapping (For example, Emotional mapping, scale and dimension, mapping animals etc.)

We’ve worked with what we learned on our case studies and focused on scale and dimension as well as emotional mapping as we found those to be useful for our work.

In the process, we tried out a lot of different techniques to find out which one represents the case study and what we want to communicate the most.

This map (scale and dimension) is a traditional work we produced to show where the Asian carp (silver carp in particular) is most abundant and in which areas it is interrupted and or interacted with by humans. We focused more on this technique on our final work, which we will get into detail more later.

Scale and Dimension map

Next, we’ve done a few sketches that show how the Asian carp could react emotionally to the intervention of humans. In this case, underwater electric fences.

Emotional map

Review map

We’ve also worked on another type of emotional cartography that shows different google reviews along the Mississippi.

In the process, we decided that we wanted to show both the perspective of the asian carp as well as the one of different people.

Another thing we’ve worked on is a visualized story we wrote from the perspective of an asian carp, starting when they were brought into the Mississippi River.

It shows the timeline of an asian carp in the Mississippi as well as an emotional perspective.

With this very free and storytelling medium, we felt like we couldn't tell enough information. We lacked a clear concept, something that has recognition value and can be deciphered. Even though we weren't 100 percent convinced by this storytelling, it came across very well to Sarah Lewison. It reminded her of the real straightening of the horseshoes in the river to make it more efficient.

Final Work

First of all, we wanted to use this diagram (Relations of the Asian carp) to create a clear layout of the relationships between the individual actors and influencal factors.

We liked having an overview of what is going on and being able to give that to other people who hadn‘t studied the subject as much as we did.

Having used the medium of the mind map or relationship map several times before, it seemed fitting to us to extend these maps further and make them more complex.

This was the first design where we used a map based on Patrick Abercrombie's famous 'Potato Plan' as inspiration. It works very well for our topic because it allows us to show the intersectionality of the individual topics and actors.

The completed Map

In this map, the relationships are made clear on the one hand by arrows, which have different meanings, and on the other hand by coloured fields, which connect different actors and influencal factors if they have a lot in common.

You can see how the principle works in the top right section: the yellow field connects actors who demand more tolerance and empathy.

These include the „All Species Parade“, the „Fin Gourmet“ and the „Economy of Care“. All these institutions, actors and movements want to improve the reputation of Asian carp and make it a normality in the long run.

The „Asian Carp Convival Meal“ also belongs to this group, but on top of that, this idea is about thinking sustainably and focusing on the natural ecosystem. That‘s why the „Asian Carp Convival Meal“ also belongs to two groups and is highlighted in both green and yellow.

The green arrows represent a supportive relation, and the red arrows represent a negative relation. In this case, the „Asian Carp Convival Meal“ supports using the Asian carp as a natural resource and opposes sending the carp back to Asia after it is caught in the Mississippi River.

According to this principle, the card is easy to read and understandable, but we felt like a lot of information was still missing in it. That‘s why we decided to make another separate page with explanations of events, groups, ideas and actors, so that you can read up on a lot of things if you want to.

Further Explanations to the different actors, systems and sayings.

A localization of the Asian Carp

In our Map “A localization of the Asian Carp” we wanted to show more than just the spreading of the Asian carp.

The map also presents the locations of the All Species Parade which included the Asian carp; Carbondale City whose population protests against the coal industry and the resulting effects on the ecological system and on the people living there.

Last but not least we wrote an interview in which various people and even Carps voice their opinion about the usage of the word “invasive species” and the All Species Parade. The Interview and opinions are completely fictional since we did not have the resources to ask real people living there confronted with the issue and talking to local carps seemed even more impossible. We did this since the localization and the Relation map are rather objective and do not include individual fate, something we did not want to lose track of. Including small illustrations of these people makes it easier to connect with them on a personal level.

In the localization map we reused some of the colors of the Relation map to make it easily understandable. The turquoise dots represent the Asian Carp population in the Mississippi River, high density and darker dots indicate big populations of carp.

We used orange for the Carbondale City protests since the protestors wanted to draw attention to the ecological impact of the coal industry and the Relation map uses the same color for the same topic.

The colour yellow is also based on the Relation map yellow which symbolizes tolerance and sympathy for example the All Species Parade.

Lastly red communicates danger or hostility towards the Asian Carp. For example Illinois uses underwater electrical fences and other various methods to keep the carp from spreading into the Lake Michigan.

The colors are also used in the illustrations of the Interviewes in order to make it easier to locate the different points of view on the map. We added the green color to the carps since we used it in the map to show their populations.

Conclusion

We had a lot of fun with this project and learned countless new things even though we sadly could not include all of them in the results. During the process we struggled with including the various personal opinions and tried many ways of showing them since this was an important aspect to us.

Finding the balance between highlighting the general facts in order to make it understandable for people who are not familiar with the case Study “On the Recuperative Mismanagement of a Cosmopolitan Fish” by Sarah Lewison and Andrew Yang and talking about the parts that were most interesting to us personally was not always easy.

In the end we are really happy with how it turned out. We found more and more ways to display what we wanted to display and challenged ourselves to find creative and new ways to get to the point we finally are.